Rubio Move Failed to Protect Life-Saving Aid, USAID Official Says
- Memo says Rubio’s waivers for ‘life-saving’ aid didn’t work
- Staff cuts, DOGE activities threw up roadblocks to waivers
Even as President Donald Trump froze foreign aid and began dismantling the US Agency for International Development, his top diplomat Marco Rubio promised that waivers would ensure that “life-saving” assistance continued.
But a senior USAID official said in a memo that the secretary of state’s efforts to exempt crucial humanitarian aid “was not possible due to administrative and bureaucratic challenges” erected by political appointees, leading to preventable deaths and national security threats on a “massive scale.”